Tom Brady: NFL hasn’t contacted me as part of investigation

Posted by Josh Alper on January 22, 2015, 4:51 PM EST

AP

The NFL landscape has been dominated by the Deflategate story all week and the league has said several times that they are investigating the issue, but Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s Thursday press conference on the issue raised some questions about the depth and scope of that investigation.

Brady said that no one from the NFL has contacted him as of Thursday, four days after the league discovered the under-inflated footballs during halftime of the team’s AFC Championship game victory over the Colts. One has to wonder just what they’re investigating if the player who handles the ball on every snap and would have the most stake in the condition of the balls isn’t deemed worthy of an interview. Beyond that, one has to wonder who they have bothered talking to if Brady was considered an unimportant voice.

Good thing the Mueller Report recommended the league take on a more proactive role in investigations of possible criminal behavior.

The league could still interview Brady, of course, but NFL V.P. of football operations Troy Vincent told us on PFT Live Tuesday that the league planned to conclude the investigation in the next two or three days.

Brady denied altering footballs and having any knowledge of what might have happened during a lengthy session with the media that’s begging to be made into the latest SNL installment celebrating the inherent humor in people saying “balls” over and over again.

UPDATE 5:01 p.m. ET: When asked why the NFL hasn’t spoken to Brady, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told Bob Glauber of Newsday that “we are not commenting on the details of the review at this point.”

He said he prefers his balls at 12.5 PSI. This tell us that he knows the feel of the football to the decimal point. He later contradicts that, insisting he didn’t notices a difference from one half to the other. He came into the press conference with every intention to lie about everything. smh

This is going to be ugly. In one corner you have the Patriots and Brady who have a questionable track record with their winning, vs the likes of Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Madden etc., legends and hall of famers who have come out with statements against how the Patriots are winning.

This was an opportunity to just say I like them a certain way, we gave them to the refs. We messed up. Lets move on.
Lying is not going to help his reputation, this organization and this Superbowl.
As a Pats fan I am disappointed.

Based on what we’ve learned about NFL security in the last 4-6 months, I think we know that they probably had some retired cop look at a Boston phone book, dial the number for anyone he found named “Tom Brady” and asked him if he knew anything about this matter. Maybe he’ll follow up in a week or month if his boss gets on his case about it.

He likes his balls and makes sure they’re “perfect” at exactly 12.5 PSI before the game, yet he doesn’t squeeze the balls during the game or otherwise notice that they’ve dropped two pounds when every other QB says it makes a huge difference to them?

During the entire press conference, he sounded like a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. At least Belicheat was somewhat believable.

He actually said that is where he likes the balls at the time he picks the ones he wants to use during the game. He also said he likes to check the laces and tackiness of the ball and that they are chosen from balls used at practice. It’s like a pitcher wanting to throw a ball that feels good in his hand. After that he said he doesn’t give them another thought in the games because he knows he has the balls he approved before the game. Liking the balls at the bottom of the scale is no more of an indictment than liking balls at 13.5. There is no contradiction. Once he goes through his process with the balls he is focused on the game. What is so hard to understand?

Brady is so meticulous about footballs that he pushed for the rules changes in 2006 that allow customization. He said he likes the ball at “12.5.” (Max is 13.5). Yet he couldn’t tell the difference of a ball at 10.5?

Not buying it. And the fact that they feel the need to lie really proves that something is amiss.

This is pretty ridiculous. If the league swapped footballs at halftime and the Pats then outscored the Colts 28-0, then I’m thinking Indy should want deflated balls. 17-7 with “doctored” balls,45-7 with regulation ones. Apparently Luck couldn’t throw with nor could the Colts RBs carry with either. I guess the ref who inspected them is in on it too. It’s a case of sour grapes from the Ravens who blew their game and Indy who got blown out and I am not a fan of any team involved, so no bias here.

It’s one thing that the deflated balls were used in a route of the Colts when the game was never close. It’s another when the game with the Ravens was a fight to the end and Brady might have used deflated footballs to comeback from 2 TDs twice. That doesn’t sit well with me.

To say that Flacco was at a disadvantage assumes he uses 12.5 psi, but prefers lower. If he uses anything higher or prefers exactly 12.5, then Flacco was using exactly what he prefers. Given that Flacco likes to throw his DPI jump balls to take advantage of new Dpi rules, he probably prefers a psi that allows longer more accurate throws, ie more inflatin not less.

His lack oversight, irrationally random punishments, politicking, rule changes, expansion / international ideas are out of step with that of the Fans and Players. This is just another small chapter in a long, ongoing downward spiral of a career as Boss of the NFL.

How many more blunders and missteps by Roger do we need to see. It’s time for him to go.

Brady should’ve just said “I like deflated footballs when I am throwing them at personal workouts during the off-season,” “I never ordered or doctored the balls myself,” “I did not want to put too much emphasis nor be extremely picky about the balls because of the weather,” “I already play with the mindset that everything is out of my control,” and “I heard nothing from my team it’s about the feel of the ball either.”

Of course the NFL didn’t fully investigate the team of one of the most powerful owners and one of the Commissioner’s strongest backers. Why bite the hand that feeds you. The Patriots deflated Roger’s balls first.

If the Pats win the SB, everyone will say they got there by cheating. If they lose the SB everyone will say, look what happens when they’re forced to play by the rules. And little to no football coverage beyond this single issue for us fans. Lose/lose for everyone.

The only question I have that no one has asked during the interview is how can some guy who plays defense intercept a ball and know within a matter of seconds the ball seemed to be funky. That’s the one question that baffles me. QB’s, WR’s and refs touch the ball all day and some guy who hardly does knows the ball feels wrong. Plus the 11 of 12 balls tested were under inflated. It just makes no sense.

This is disturbing. The cardinal rule in any investigation is to interview anyone who might have relevant information as quickly as possible. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that the guilty parties will cook up an exculpatory story and bring others into a cover-up conspiracy. By any reasonable standard, Tom Brady would be one of the Top 5 people you would want to interview.

It’s entirely possible that Brady has a ‘wink-wink’ relationship with the ball boys going back years. If it’s cold or rainy, they know to go ahead and deflate, and Tom never says anything to them, so he has know culpability. It’s an organizational problem, and the organization should be punished.

No one will ever know the entire story much like spygate. The ones involved got paid a handsome amount of money to keep quiet and the nfl will find a way to rid of the evidence. Goodell is a patriot fan.

Bring on the Hate as a Lifelong Pats Fan who remembers when their season was over by October….I love this…..Brady AND Belichik best Ever !!!! as Tedy Bruschi said “You hate us cuz you aint us ” …..Off to the Super Bowl again !

Per Adam Shefter just now online “The NFL is having a difficult time coming up with any direct evidence that these balls were even tampered with.”
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Not a problem. The entire NFL universe has already convicted them based on a sketchy leaked report from Chris Mortenson without any concrete proof of who tested the balls, how they did it, if the results were reliable or if this whole thing is a frame job perpetrated by the Colts and Ravens.

How did the Ravens KNOW there was an issue from the week prior? It’s because they always do this.

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What should be alarming to the Ravens is that the Colts allegedly mentioned to the NFL Office that they suspected something after their prior game this season and then the NFL waited til this game to check.

Delaying the Brady and Beliicheat interviews could be strategic. Find out everything you can first. Dig hard to get to the bottom of it. Then talk to those guys from a position of strength. Brady might think right now that the ball guy won’t squeal. But he takes a big risk in lying to the NFL, if they go into the interview knowing that Brady was involved.

Still no evidence of tampering with the balls regardless of what people want to say. The people crying the loudest still have nothing that says anyone let alone Tom Brady or Bill Belichick tampered with balls.

It’s entirely possible that Brady has a ‘wink-wink’ relationship with the ball boys going back years. If it’s cold or rainy, they know to go ahead and deflate, and Tom never says anything to them, so he has know culpability. It’s an organizational problem, and the organization should be punished.
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The Colts claimed the balls were underinflated in November during the game indoors in Lucas Oil Stadium. But the league evidently never found any evidence that this was the case.

So, lets recap… Aaron Rodgers over inflates the ball, no one cares…. Brad Johnson paid an outside source to alter 100 balls and no one cares…. Brady played 2 quarters of marginally effective foorball with balls 15% under the regulation limit and he should be banned? ok, got it!

– Guy-Lussac’s Law describes the relationship between the pressure of a confined ideal gas and its temperature. For the sake of argument, we will assume that the football is a rigid enough container (unless a ball is massively deflated, it’s volume won’t change). The relationship is (P1/T1) = (P2/T2), where P is the pressure and T is the temperature in Kelvins.
– The balls are inflated to between 12.5 and 13.5 psi at a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit (294.1 K). Let’s assume an average ball has a pressure of 13 psi. Since these are initial values, we will call them P1 and T1.
– The game time temperature was 49 degrees F (278 K). We are attempting to solve for the new pressure at this temperature, P2. We plug everything into the equation and get (13/294.1) = (P2/278). At the game time temperature, the balls would have a pressure of 12.3 psi, below league specifications.
Furthermore, given that it was raining all day, the air in the stadium was saturated with water vapor. At 70 degrees, water has a vapor pressure of 0.38 psi. The total pressure of the ball is equal to the pressure of the air inside the ball and the vaporized water in the ball. At 49 degrees, the vapor pressure of water is 0.13 psi. Up to 0.25 additional psi can be lost if the balls were inflated by either the team or the refs prior to the game. Granted, it’s unlikely that anyone would inflate balls from 0, but it easily could cost another couple hundredths of a psi in pressure.
– For a ball that barely meets specifications (12.5 psi), it’s pressure would drop to 11.8 psi during the game… enough to be considered massively under-inflated.

Anyone who pays at least moderate attention can easily see or feel the difference with a 15% reduction in car tire pressure. So to think that a QB who has spoken about football inflation preferences and lives with a football in his hands wouldn’t notice, is absurd. Brady is a liar and now the world knows it. I could tell by that goofy reaction on Monday that he was guilty. That was way too contrived and obviously phony.

The science has major holes in it. The balls could have been filled with hot air at room temperature, and cooled off significantly outside after that, indisputably that could account for much of the disparity. Perhaps a minor amount of gamesmanship at work. Further, the condition of the Indy game balls proves nothing, they are not some sort of sacred control group. They could have been inflated to the absolute high end of the range, so as to stay in compliance no matter the temperature. Particularly as Indy knew in advance they were running a Pats sting operation, aided and abetted by the Ravens.

Further, the NFL knew well in advance. Yet, despite the advance notice, prediction here is at the end they will not have any concrete proof of a misdeed. What does that tell you?

All the talking heads like Westbrook, Bettis, Brunell, even John Harbaugh should be ashamed of themselves. Their envy is obvious. They are drooling all over themselves for that smoking gun that they’d hold over the franchise, forever. It’s so obvious, and a really bad look. Why aren’t they talking about Seattle’s PED problem?

What would Roger Staubach, Ken Stabler, Joe Montana, Joe Thiesman, Sonny Jurgenson, Daryle Lamonica, Jim Plunkett, Johnny Unitas, Bert Jones, etc not to mention the other current starting 31 say about all this? They’d say this is a total crock.

The only thing we’ve learned from all this: the Patriots are the most hated team not just today, but in the entire history of the NFL. By the media, other players, and “fans”. All this righteous indignation stinks to high heaven. Let ye without football sin cast the first stone.

Apparently a lot depends on the temperature at which the ball is inflated. This begs the question. Is it possible to game the system by inflating the ball under temperatures high enough to make deflation more extreme when exposed to those weather conditions?

Does Edelman throw that touchdown with a legally inflated ball? Or did he use the one ball that was properly inflated? How about Flacco? Wonder how he would have done with a deflated ball? How did it affect the turnovers, I.e. fumbles? Your head is in the sand if you think this is the first time the Patriots have attempted this – the AFC championship is no time for experimentation. Walking up to the ref, calling yourself ineligible, then quick snapping the ball before the defense can reset (either the refs screwed up and didn’t allow the Ravens to reset or there well be a rule change coming this summer) may be sly…but it’s not cheating. This is.

Game officials inspect and approve all game balls 2 hours, 15 minutes before the start of the game, placing a unique mark on each to signify compliance with weight and inflation requirements. A ball attendant takes them to the field, where they are kept by ball boys on the sideline. Presumably, someone on the sideline could reduce inflation after the initial inspection.

Liars & Cheaters = Golden Boy, Golden Coach, Golden Team. Really?? Is this what the NFL really wants to endorse?!! What happens from here is going to determine whether that “Shield” regains any of that pre-Goodell shimmer!!

bonniebengal says:
Jan 22, 2015 7:27 PM
Excellent point by Jerome Bettis: Tom Brady said he likes the footballs to be at 12 psi, then said he didn’t notice the difference when they were much less. Both can’t be true.

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how is that even close to being a “good point?” He gets the ball snapped to him, he gets the laces to his fingers and he throws it.

This is disturbing. The cardinal rule in any investigation is to interview anyone who might have relevant information as quickly as possible. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that the guilty parties will cook up an exculpatory story and bring others into a cover-up conspiracy. By any reasonable standard, Tom Brady would be one of the Top 5 people you would want to interview.
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Actually, as someone who conducts investigations for a living, I can tell you that Brady is the subject you want to interview LAST. You want to gain as much information as you can from the other interviews and research because Brady is the most likely person to be at the center of this whole thing, and the information you glean from the other interviews will aid you during the interview with Brady.

You start with the Colts equip mgr, Pagano and the Colts GM to get your background and timeline of what they noticed when. The you interview the ref that certified the footballs. You go through video and other physical evuidence and then you start interviewing the Pats interviews with the ball boy and equip mgr first. Those are the guys that would be most likely to roll on Brady.

Plus, you let Tom go do his Press Conference before the interview in the event that he says something publicly that you can use.

Also, don’t be surprised if some of what we’ve heard about either the number of balls, or the amount they were underinflated turns out to be wrong. That way if someone slips and says something that wasn’t leaked (Ex: like the real amount they were underinflated then you know they have more info than they are telling you).

The biggest problem I have with the investigation so far is if they knew there were potential issues with the Pats underinflating balls why would you wait until halftime of the AFC Title Game to weigh them? You would have taken them out of play at the first TV timeout at the latest if you had any concern about the integrity of the game.

As an investigator I would say be very leery of relying on any info reporters have gleaned from “sources” as some if not all of it might be misinformation leaked (no pun intended) to give the interviewers some additional means of tripping up the culpable party or parties.

Why doesn’t Robert Kraft or Roger Goodell just ask them to submit to a polygraph? Anybody who they think is suspect…from the ball boy’s to Bellichick himself, afterall isn’t it about protecting” THE SHIELD” and “THE INTEGRITY OF THE GAME” right Mr.Goodell? And why hasn’t anyone from the league offices put out any sort of statement? Yet they’re so quick to fine someone for grabbing their nutsack…

I’m sorry to disappoint all of you pitchfork and torches types but the nfl is having a hard time proving anything and my guess is it’s because the refs did not use gauges to check the balls before the game. If that’s the case, it is impossible to convict the pats of anything. The pats probably know this and that’s why you got the press conferences you did yesterday.

This is pretty ridiculous. If the league swapped footballs at halftime and the Pats then outscored the Colts 28-0, then I’m thinking Indy should want deflated balls. 17-7 with “doctored” balls,45-7 with regulation ones. Apparently Luck couldn’t throw with nor could the Colts RBs carry with either. I guess the ref who inspected them is in on it too. It’s a case of sour grapes from the Ravens who blew their game and Indy who got blown out .

– Guy-Lussac’s Law describes the relationship between the pressure of a confined ideal gas and its temperature. For the sake of argument, we will assume that the football is a rigid enough container (unless a ball is massively deflated, it’s volume won’t change). The relationship is (P1/T1) = (P2/T2), where P is the pressure and T is the temperature in Kelvins.
– The balls are inflated to between 12.5 and 13.5 psi at a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit (294.1 K). Let’s assume an average ball has a pressure of 13 psi. Since these are initial values, we will call them P1 and T1.
– The game time temperature was 49 degrees F (278 K). We are attempting to solve for the new pressure at this temperature, P2. We plug everything into the equation and get (13/294.1) = (P2/278). At the game time temperature, the balls would have a pressure of 12.3 psi, below league specifications.
Furthermore, given that it was raining all day, the air in the stadium was saturated with water vapor. At 70 degrees, water has a vapor pressure of 0.38 psi. The total pressure of the ball is equal to the pressure of the air inside the ball and the vaporized water in the ball. At 49 degrees, the vapor pressure of water is 0.13 psi. Up to 0.25 additional psi can be lost if the balls were inflated by either the team or the refs prior to the game. Granted, it’s unlikely that anyone would inflate balls from 0, but it easily could cost another couple hundredths of a psi in pressure.
– For a ball that barely meets specifications (12.5 psi), it’s pressure would drop to 11.8 psi during the game… enough to be considered massively under-inflated………………..
Factor that the temperature dropped more than 10 degrees by half time and thepsi would be even lower, yes?

Brunell CRYING over this and this makes you have MORE respect for him?

For every player that says they would notice a difference in the balls there are players saying they couldn’t, and tested that theory on the radio shows.

“I could tell if my car tire pressure was at 35 compared to 30(approx 15%), sure buddy. Maybe that’s because the light on your dashboard tells you it’s low and beeps in your face. Maybe that’s the answer, the NFL should have lights and horns go off when a ball drops below 12.5 psi.

We don’t even have the facts released. Keep harping on 11 of 12 balls being 2 psi under inflated, reported by Mortensen, the same guy who reported the Dquell Jackson story…..which by the way Jackson said is completely false. Weird……not.

I’m wondering what the inflation pressure was on the ball that Odell Beckham Jr. of the Giants caught behind his head with two fingers? Did anyone check?

‘Cuz that seemed utterly impossible at the time, but makes more sense if the PSI of a ball was never something anyone obsessed about before the Ravens and Colts needed to find some trumped up BS thing to complain about after losing to NE.

Seems the refs gave all balls a cursory look in every game for years now, never put a pressure gauge to any of them, had no provision to recalibrate based on weather, and never thought it made any difference anyway.

Apparently Luck couldn’t throw with nor could the Colts RBs carry with either. I guess the ref who inspected them is in on it too. It’s a case of sour grapes from the Ravens who blew their game and Indy who got blown out .
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The Colts’ balls were not under-inflated. This was a thing like, 4 days ago.

1) a disgruntled reporter form Indy exagerates a story about something being wring with the football.
2) ESPN’s Chris Mortensen breaks a story saying 11 of 12 “Patriots” balls are under inflated (source un-named and anonymous) and all hell breaks loose
3) Both Belichek and Brady deny doing anything wrong.
4) A whole list of unnamed sources and unsubstantiated stories later still nothing that proves anything
5) The NFL investigation has gone silent and so far no evidence of cheating has been produced.

The more time passes , the people who broke this story look worse and worse… If I was ESPN , and this story turns out to be nothing … Mortensen is done… This is the Matt Walsh Video all over again…

It’s clear that the reason they haven’t talked to him is because the reality is that this isn’t a big deal at all. It’s a rule that is there, but has been largely ignored. The way the rule is written says it’s not important. The way it’s enforced says it’s not important. The way the QBs talk says it’s not important. The way the players and teams act says it’s not important. And, I suspect that the officials don’t really check the balls either, which is why the league is handling it this way. In other words, except to the media and Pats haters, this isn’t a scandal!

You have to ask yourself, if the officials were advised during halftime about the possibility of underinflated balls, why not just grab them all and test them? Speaking of which, does this mean that the Colts and Ravens got away with under or over inflated footballs? I haven’t heard a peep as to whether they’ve been tested. Must be a special rule that applies only to the Pats.

Welcome to the sweep it under the rug portion of this scandal.
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If by scandal you mean, someone complained to the nfl about something plausible, and the nfl needed to investigate. Until any facts come out, the ONLY PEOPLE who think this is a scandal are the ones making money off of it. MEDIA.

truthfactory says: Jan 22, 2015 4:52 PM
How did the Ravens KNOW there was an issue from the week prior? It’s because they always do this.
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The ravens complained about the kicking balls, which are NOT handled by the home team but the NFL. Another example of a coach that didn’t know any rules about balls. Seeing the pattern yet? A week later, once intercepted, Colts complain to league about……. the balls that ARE in control of the home team. Knowing that the NFL would have to investigate, nobody needed to do anything else. The Media would do the rest. Why have we not heard from the NFL? Because the refs did not use gauges to inspect the balls before the game. Why not? Because its not a big deal. Just ask Aaron Rodgers’ equipment guy.